[NFBCS] Important: Braille drivers in apple devices and operating systems

[Peter]

Hello Amanda and everyone,

	It needs to be delt with both ways. There are other things I wish
Apple and others who support PDAS would do to make life easier for blind
people who use them. For example the ability to control speech parameters in
the PDA and in supported screen readers such as Voiceover, and V with one's
voice a feature that could have saved us money when Mary's iPhone speech
sped up and she was unable to slow it down with the roder resulting in
unnecessary trips to T-Mobile and an unnecessary caregiver expense to take
her there. Being able to say, "Hay Siri, slow down Voiceover speech" would
have saved her this frustration and expense.

	Another feature of interest to us is the ability to enable or
disable audio description or closed captioning. With Amazon Prime video
enabling audio description can be acrobatic. This process could be
simplified if one could say "Alexa, tell Prime Video to enable audio
description." If Amazon was to include this skill for the lady enabling and
disabling audio description would be much easier.

Whenever we hear of new capabilities Amazon, Apple, and Google roll out for
their PDAS to razzle-dazzle us with we're not impressed! They add these
fantastic features while ignoring requests from their blind and disabled
users for features that would make their devices and software far easier to
use. Yours truly has discussed this with Apple and attempted to do so with
Amazon all to no avail. Resolutions to address issues like Braille drivers
and capabilities that should have been added to PDAS and screen readers
should have been included long ago. They're more likely to listen to the
voice of the organized blind than to single individuals. Bring on the
resolutions!!

Peter Donahue


-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Amanda Lacy via NFBCS
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2022 7:16 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Amanda Lacy <lacy925 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Important: Braille drivers in apple devices and
operating systems

Stuff is being added, not taken away. If specific braille drivers are not
working then this is a bug, and they should send it to Apple rather than
making a resolution. How goofy.

> On Oct 20, 2022, at 4:25 PM, Cricket X. Bidleman via NFBCS
<nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Our affiliate has received a resolution alleging that Apple has 
> removed Braille drivers and some other accessibility features from 
> Apple devices and operating systems, especially in beta versions but 
> also in general. The resolution proposes that we strongly urge Apple 
> to fix these errors.
> 
> In my experience, Apple has generally been reliable (after a certain
> point) about keeping and adding accessibility features. They also have 
> a bunch of great accessibility testers, whom I think would be 
> incredibly angry if Apple tried to do that. Before we leverage serious 
> complaints against Apple, I want to check whether Braille drivers and 
> other accessibility features were actually removed from Apple devices 
> and operating systems, especially beta versions.
> 
> If any of you knows whether or not this is true, please let me know as 
> soon as possible. The resolutions revisions deadline is approaching 
> very quickly, and if this resolution is false, we need for it to be 
> withdrawn.
> 
> If any of you has any articles or press releases, or solid proof of 
> this removal, I would appreciate if you could send me that as well.
> Thanks.
> 
> Best,
> cricket
> 
> 
> --
> Cricket X. Bidleman, B.A (she/her/hers) M.A Candidate | Stanford 
> Journalism Class of 2022 Co-Chair | Stanford Daily Diversity, Equity, 
> and Inclusion Committee Member | Blind Advisory Committee, California 
> Department of Vocational rehabilitation
> 
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